A microwave auditory effect

[Moreno]

Some relatively serious sources similar to wikipedia and others claim there exist a microwave auditory effect also known as a Frey effect which causes an auditory "hallucinations" in humans on 300 MHz - 3 GHz frequencies. However, what seem strange to me, is that I never in my life ever read or heard it would become a subject of a jokes or hooliganity in any country. In our time it should be very easily to acquire or slightly modify a radio transmitter even for poor people who live in a poor countries. Then such a device (which is capable to cause an auditory effects) should become a one of the most common toy device of all the hooligans on the planet. Try to imagine what kind of tricks and jokes could be done with help of it. And especially as an official legislation doesn't proclaim any serious responsibility for its use. Futhermore if children are joking. Yet I never heard of anything like this. What rises question: does this effect really exist???

[Strange]

Quote

the device "would kill you well before you were bothered by the noise".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect

Never mind the practical problems of “hooligans” building a portable, high-power, directional microwave transmitter and then using it without being spotted...

17 minutes ago, Moreno said:

And especially as an official legislation doesn't proclaim any serious responsibility for its use. 

I imagine that attempting something like that would break all sorts of laws. 

[Endy0816]

4 hours ago, Strange said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect

Never mind the practical problems of “hooligans” building a portable, high-power, directional microwave transmitter and then using it without being spotted...

I imagine that attempting something like that would break all sorts of laws. 

Yeah, most countries have restrictions on frequency use already.

Could a maser work for this too? Room temperature prototype, is considerably smaller, about the size of a couple soup cans.

Edited July 7, 2019 by Endy0816

[swansont]

8 hours ago, Strange said:

I imagine that attempting something like that would break all sorts of laws. 

In the US there are power limits on RF/microwave transmissions unless you have permission.

4 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

Could a maser work for this too? Room temperature prototype, is considerably smaller, about the size of a couple soup cans.

Why bother with the added complexity of a maser? 

[Endy0816]

7 hours ago, swansont said:

Why bother with the added complexity of a maser? 

I was thinking the lower bulk and confined beam might make for a good non-lethal takedown weapon.

A short pulse to the ear could distract without microwaving them too much otherwise.

[swansont]

7 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

I was thinking the lower bulk and confined beam might make for a good non-lethal takedown weapon.

A short pulse to the ear could distract without microwaving them too much otherwise.

I'm not convinced a maser is less bulky than a simple RF or microwave transmitter at the same power.

[Moreno]

On 7/7/2019 at 5:33 PM, Strange said:

I imagine that attempting something like that would break all sorts of laws. 

How cases which involve microwave harassment are typically investigated by police in civilized countries? For example if some mentally troubled person will decide to irradiate his neighbours with microwaves through the walls, by either causing slow health damage to them or an auditory hallucinations, how police typically deals or suppose to deal by law in such cases? 

[Strange]

Just now, Moreno said:

How cases which involve microwave harassment are typically investigated by police in civilized countries?

Are there any such cases?

1 minute ago, Moreno said:

For example if some mentally troubled person will decide to irradiate his neighbours with microwaves through the walls, by either causing slow health damage to them or an auditory hallucinations, how police typically deals or suppose to deal by law in such cases? 

The more common problem seems to be that people with mental health problems (often schizophrenia) believe they are being targeted by such technology. If this becomes a serious problem for them, then they may be referred to mental health professionals.

[Moreno]

1) I would be truly wondered if not.

2) I wouldn't exclude such a possibility, but I have doubts mentally sick people often have mania with such specific technogenic undertext. Schizofrenia is an ancient illness, but microwaves became widely known in the last 40-50 years only... 

And also, how schizofrenics could even know that microwaves can cause an auditory hallucinations unless they read or heard about this before (what is not always a case). Frey effect is not widely known...

Edited July 20, 2019 by Moreno

[Strange]

2 minutes ago, Moreno said:

1) I would be truly wondered if not.

Why? Do you have any evidence that (a) anyone has ever done this or (b) anyone has ever reported it to the police?

2 minutes ago, Moreno said:

2) I wouldn't exclude such a possibility, but I have doubts mentally sick people often have mania with such specific technogenic undertext. Schizofrenia is an ancient illness, but microwaves became widely known in the last 40-50 years only... 

Well, duh. No one would have claimed this before the invention of microwaves (and the publication of such effects). Before then, they would have blamed demons or witches, I guess.

However, it is a pretty common occurrence on forums like this to have people who clearly have mental health problems claiming that their symptoms are used by radio waves (or similar technology).

Quote

Numerous individuals suffering from auditory hallucinations, delusional disorders,^[13] or other mental illnesses have claimed that government agents use forms of mind control technologies based on microwave signals to transmit sounds and thoughts into their heads as a form of electronic harassment, referring to the alleged technology as "voice to skull" or "V2K".^[14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect#Conspiracy_theories

[Moreno]

5 minutes ago, Strange said:

Why? Do you have any evidence that (a) anyone has ever done this or (b) anyone has ever reported it to the police?

Well, duh. No one would have claimed this before the invention of microwaves (and the publication of such effects). Before then, they would have blamed demons or witches, I guess.

However, it is a pretty common occurrence on forums like this to have people who clearly have mental health problems claiming that their symptoms are used by radio waves (or similar technology).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect#Conspiracy_theories

And what proves they are mentally ill?

[Strange]

24 minutes ago, Moreno said:

And what proves they are mentally ill?

The fact they believe they are being targeted with non-existent microwave weapons (when their medical professionals have told them otherwise), maybe?

[Moreno]

So, these people who claim they are targeted by the government agencies typically provide some reason for been targeted or not? 

[Strange]

9 minutes ago, Moreno said:

So, these people who claim they are targeted by the government agencies typically provide some reason for been targeted or not? 

I don't think so.  (Search the forum, you will find lots of examples.)

[Strange]

Here you go, a nice shiny new example for you:

 

[Moreno]

19 hours ago, Strange said:

I don't think so.  (Search the forum, you will find lots of examples.)

That is strange. And even unexpected. I would rather expect that those who complain for harassment and have increased "schizophrenia occurence" are people with different varieties of a left/socialist/social democratic views. It is surprising if not...

[Dagl1]

58 minutes ago, Moreno said:

That is strange. And even unexpected. I would rather expect that those who complain for harassment and have increased "schizophrenia occurence" are people with different varieties of a left/socialist/social democratic views. It is surprising if not...

What relationship is there between left/socialist or social democratic views and... schizophrenia? Why would you expect them to be related? 

[Moreno]

18 minutes ago, Dagl1 said:

What relationship is there between left/socialist or social democratic views and... schizophrenia? Why would you expect them to be related? 

I didn't claim it does really exist... I said about people who complain about technological harassment and SUSPECTED with schizofrenia.

[Dagl1]

20 minutes ago, Moreno said:

I didn't claim it does really exist... I said about people who complain about technological harassment and SUSPECTED with schizofrenia.

Maybe I am just not understanding your point; but you said that you would expect those that complain about harassment (technological) and are suspected to be schizophrenic, to be people with varieties of left/socialist/social democratic views (the way this is phrased to be me implies; more than other political ideologies). So why is this something you expect?

If I misunderstood you, my bad.

-Dagl

[Strange]

6 hours ago, Moreno said:

That is strange. And even unexpected. I would rather expect that those who complain for harassment and have increased "schizophrenia occurence" are people with different varieties of a left/socialist/social democratic views. It is surprising if not...

Why?

Why should there be a correlation between schizophrenia and political views? Or between a particular type of delusion (being targeted) and political views?

[CharonY]

On 7/22/2019 at 3:08 AM, Strange said:

Why?

Why should there be a correlation between schizophrenia and political views? Or between a particular type of delusion (being targeted) and political views?

While I am hesitant to add rather vague information to the mix, there are neurocognitive studies indicating that political leanings may have neuronal correlates. Liberalism was found to be associated with higher activities in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which surprisingly has been somewhat replicated in different studies (see e.g. Amodio et al. Nat. Neuro 2007). The ACC is relevant for a number of functions including sorting and evaluation information and error detection. That alone poses some interesting questions which I am not going to address here (and which is beyond my realm of expertise). But why am I mentioning it here at all?

Well,  in patients diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia this specific area has been showing poor functioning and/or abnormalities in the ACC. While it is a bit of a stretch, if anything it appears that traits associated with schizophrenia may be more structurally related to brains that are deeply conservative (or at least the same brain area is less active).

But I want to emphasize that IMO (which, again, is not based on actual expertise, but only on a superficial reading of the literature) these connections between neuronal structures and political leanings are not terribly informative. Brain activity has been shown to be very plastic and as such thinking a certain way is going to alter these structures.

Nonetheless, it is interesting as it is possible that liberals and conservatives may to some degree learn different thought patterns that eventually lead to divergence in certain neuronal correlates (but again, the effect is not necessarily huge, just detectable with imaging techniques). That in itself is perhaps not too surprising as your activity reflects its usage.

I should also add that the ACC is seemingly involved in dealing with cognitive dissonance and it has at least been speculated (IIRC) that altered or lower activity may be relevant for believing in conspiracy theories in the face of contrary evidence. But again, one has to caution against overinterpretation of what can only be considered to be very preliminary data.

[Strange]

28 minutes ago, CharonY said:

While I am hesitant to add rather vague information to the mix, there are neurocognitive studies indicating that political leanings may have neuronal correlates. ...

Interesting points (plus, the whole correlation vs causation thing needs to be considered).

So now I’m wondering if Moreno was aware of studies like this, or just relying on some gut feeling about how people think ...

[CharonY]

On 7/26/2019 at 4:06 PM, Strange said:

Interesting points (plus, the whole correlation vs causation thing needs to be considered).

So now I’m wondering if Moreno was aware of studies like this, or just relying on some gut feeling about how people think ...

And inadvertently come to the opposite conclusion? Not sure about that.

[Strange]

52 minutes ago, CharonY said:

And inadvertently come to the opposite conclusion? Not sure about that.

Oh yeah